It has become increasingly desirable to reduce the size of power-producing or thrust-producing devices such as gas turbine engines. Gas turbine engines typically include one or more shafts that include compressors, bypass fans, and turbines. Typically, air is forced into the engine and passed into a compressor. The compressed air is passed to a combustor, and at high temperature and pressure the combustion products are passed into a turbine. The turbine provides power to the shaft, which in turn provides the power to the compressor and bypass fan or gearbox. Thrust is thereby produced from the air that passes from the bypass fan, as well as from the thrust expended in the turbine combustion products.
However, air can be thermodynamically inefficient, especially during cruise operation of the engine (such as in an aircraft). Air that enters the engine is of low pressure, therefore low density. In order to reach the needed pressure and temperature at the combustor exit, the air is compressed to very high pressure ratios and heated up to very high temperatures in the combustors. In order to provide adequate mass flow rate, significant volume flow rate of the low density air is pumped through high pressure ratio consuming significant amount of power. As a result the engines are made of large and heavy components, consume large amount to fuel, and may include significant operational and maintenance expenses to cope with high combustion temperatures.
To reduce component size and complexity, some power-producing or thrust-producing devices include a super-critical carbon dioxide (s-CO2) system that provides significantly improved efficiencies compared to Brayton and other air-based systems by operating in a super-critical region (operating at a temperature and pressure that exceed the critical point). That is, a phase-diagram of CO2, as is commonly known, includes a “triple point” as the point that defines the temperature and pressure where solid, liquid, and vapor meet. Above the triple point the fluid can exist in liquid, vapor, or in a mixture of the both states. However, at higher temperature and pressure, a critical point is reached which defines a temperature and pressure where gas, liquid, and a super-critical region occur. The critical point is the top of the dome made up of the saturated liquid and saturated vapor lines. Above the critical point is the gaseous region.
Fluids have a triple point, a critical point, saturated liquid and vapor lines, and a super-critical region. One in particular, carbon dioxide, is particularly attractive for such operation due to its critical temperature and pressure of approximately 31° C. and 73 atmospheres, respectively, as well as due to its lack of toxicity. Thus, s-CO2-based systems may be operated having very dense super-critical properties, such as approximately 460 kg/m3. The excellent combination of the thermodynamic properties of carbon dioxide may result in improved overall thermodynamic efficiency and therefore a tremendously reduced system size. Due to the compact nature and high power density of a power source that is powered with a super-critical cycle, the overall size of engine may be significantly reduced, as well.
A super-critical fluid occurs at temperatures and pressures above the critical point, where distinct liquid and gas phases do not exist. Close to the critical point and in the super-critical region, small changes in pressure or temperature result in large changes in density, allowing many properties of the super-critical fluid to be fine-tuned, providing a tremendous opportunity for high power energy extraction and in a small footprint relative to, for instance, an air-based thermodynamic system (such as a Brayton cycle).
However, rotational speeds for each component within known engines are not necessarily optimized, and thus overall system efficiency is not at its peak. As such, there is a need to provide system operation in power-producing devices that employ a s-CO2 operation.